Multiple Sessions of Creo with One Floating License

[TomU]

Just saw this come through from PTC today.  This is pretty huge.  Multiple sessions of Creo running on the same computer will now pull only one floating license.

https://support.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/solution.jsp?n=CS234779

• The requested change has been implemented into the license cutting tool
• All newly retrieved or generated license files will have this function included
• Launching multiple sessions using floating license will consume only one license for a single host

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[James62]

Thanks for the good news.

[Domen]

Do you understand what is meant with:

• The requested change has been implemented into the license cutting tool

[TomU]

It means the change was made to the internal PTC tool that actually generates the licenses.  Based on the article it doesn't seem like anything needs to be done on our end except requesting a new license file.

[BenLoosli]

Request a new license and install it to take advantage of this change. All the work to implement the change was done with PTC's license generator.

When you get a new license compare the codes imbedded in the license feature and you will see something is different in the license codes. The LMGRD and LMAdmin already know what to do if they see the changed codes.

[Domen]

Has anybody tested this? And is it working on your comuputer?

I got a new license from PTC, but it doesn`t work.

It still takes 1 license for 1 session.

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

I tested it, too ... and opened Case at PTC Support to report that new functionality is not available​, yet.

MH

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

yesterday PTC Support closed the Case. New functionality is available for all users using floating licenses.

MH

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

I reported following problem to PTC Support on 02-Sep-2016:

DUP_GROUP=UHD option is present in Creo license INCREMENT block, only. It is missing in extension INCREMENT block. Therefore if you configure commercial license using PROE_FoundationAdv Creo license plus 127 extension (Mechanism Design License) then:

1st Creo started uses PROE_FoundationAdv+127

2nd Creo started uses PROE_FoundationAdv, only ... error message tells user that 127 module was not acquired !

MH

[TomU]

Interesting.  I just took a look at our license file and confirmed the same thing.  Please let us know what support says.

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

PTC Support and PTC License departments first reaction is ... this is intended behavior ...

I explained them that current "situation" is very confusing. Now I am waiting for their response .

MH

[TomU]

You might need to escalate to the product manager level.  They probably weren't explicitly told to make it work for extensions so they consider it working to spec.  Clearly the intent of the change is not being met if you can't open up additional sessions on the same host using the same licenses.  Push back.

[MartinHanak]

Hi,

UPDATE of PTC Support case https://www.ptc.com/appserver/cs/view/case.jsp?n=13239547

---

After communicating with the R&D and the licensing, DUP_GROUP is not available for extension licenses, only base licenses and some floating options.

---

Tom Uminn, if you can contact product manager, please do it ... I give up .

MH

[STEVEG]

We can't see this document anymore.  Listed as an internal PTC document.

[TomU]

It's not working.  R&D is trying to figure out why.  Martin has a case open and so do I.  Frustrating. 

[STEVEG]

Ah.  Thank you for the update.

[llie]

I know it is not work yet, but where was this publicized? Can you please provide the link?

[StephenW]

It originally was viewable on the original post from Tom (above). It has since been removed.

[TomU]

This is what the article was showing when it was still available:

[TomU]

It looks like PTC has fixed the issue.  I have three sessions of Creo running right now and I'm only pulling one floating license.

The key seems to be the addition of the option "DUP_GROUP=UHD" in each of the license sections.

Everyone should request a new license file and try it again.

P.S.  For those who manually parse the ptc_d.log file this may cause some confusion since each session shows up as a unique license request but the actual license usage is less.

[llie]

Are you using Windchill? What does it do for data collision having same data (assembly) in multiple session? Our not so novice users might have multiple sessions opened to the same workspace.

[BenLoosli]

You can still only have the part checked out in one workspace.

If your engineers work without doing a checkout, make their changes, then checkout and check-in, he who does the final check-in wins for that around and the other check-ins from other workspaces get lost in the iterations, unless they are good are resyncing the workspace data. Even then I can see changes being lost or overwritten.

I am not a fan of using multiple Creo sessions connected to the same workspace nor am I a fan of multiple workspaces having the same parts for modification.

One workspace for one project, multiple projects working is ok. If one project modifies part A and part B, which use part A is in another workspace, lock part A in the Part B workspace to be read-only to prevent accidental double changes.

Using Windchill requires some discipline to get it working so you don't trash other parts.

[TomU]

For this test I wasn't.  If you are going to run connected to Windchill you need to have separate cache locations for each Creo session.  (At least with Creo 3.0)  To Ben's point, yes I would be concerned about making changes in two separate sessions connected to the same workspace, even if they do have their own caches.  However having one session showing everything prior to change and another session where you're actually making the changes could be very helpful.